Parents upset by plan to slice pizza lunches
The popular pizza lunch in some Peel schools may soon be off the menu.
Thousands of schoolchildren look forward to the weekly or monthly ritual, and Ontario schools see it as a valuable fundraiser to pay for field trips and programs such as Scientists in School.
But parents in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic board are angry after recently learning that officials are going to allow individual schools to decide to ban them for fundraising if kids have severe allergies to the ingredients in pizza.
Some schools in Dufferin-Peel Catholic board want to ban pizza lunches over liability concerns regarding allergies
The issue has become “volatile,” said Brenda Coady, who co-chairs the School Advisory Council at Divine Mercy Elementary School in Mississauga. “Parents were very upset.” The council raises over $15,000 a year through weekly lunches, money now in jeopardy.
“It would be very difficult in this stage in the year to find that $15,000 another way,” said Coady.
The board approved the policy at a committee meeting Monday.
“It’s about liability,” Coady said. “They told us that as a school board, if the allergen is present in the school, the school board has to take any and all precautions to avoid liability.”
“I’m surprised to hear there are schools that are considering removing (pizza),” said Lilly Byrtus of the Allergy/Asthma Information Association.
Wheat and gluten are rarely “immediately life-threatening,” in the way foods like peanuts can be, said Byrtus. The risk comes from longterm ingestion of wheat products, usually by people unaware of their allergy, she said.
“As long as the kids with that allergy are not eating that product, it shouldn’t be a threat to their health,” she said. “It’s not that big of a threat.” Since 2006, the board has an anaphylactic policy that prohibits “fundraising events that include life-threatening allergens such as peanuts, peanut by-products, tree nuts, fish, milk, soy, egg, sesame seed, shellfish and wheat.” Those foods, except for sesame seeds, account for most food-allergic reactions, according to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. Board officials say they excluded from the rules pizza and sub lunches organized by school councils because the parents and staff considered them a service, not a fundraiser.
“It’s one less meal that (parents are) providing during the week. It supports that the kids have a hot lunch during the week,” said superintendent of schools Denise OudeReimerink.
Issue has become “volatile,” says school council co-chair
Oude-Reimerink said the board realized pizza lunches were considered fundraising only when they were mentioned in new provincial guidelines that outlined how schools could spend money generated through school councils.
“It was clear through the fundraising guideline, and through our legal council, that schools that were selling pizza for profit . . . would fall within the definition of fundraising,” said Oude-Reimerink, who admitted there may have been a gap between the two policies.
Coady said the board should put procedures in place to deal with the problem instead of creating an artificially safe environment for students who have the life-threatening allergies. After all, most children bringing lunch from home will bring foods banned from fundraisers, such as milk and wheat. At Divine Mercy, children in the same class as kids with allergies already eat at tables designated for specific foods and wash the surface, as well as their hands, afterwards. “It’s such a fine line, because you want to have compassion and empathy for the child and the family and what they have to deal with on a daily basis,” said Coady. “We do have great procedures in place for these kids . . . We should be working to put procedures in place so we can live with the allergy instead of giving these kids a false sense of security.” Community consultation will take place at school council meetings. Principals will make the decision on whether the lunches go ahead. Toronto District School Board Trustee Shelley Laskin opposes a pizza ban. “My philosophy is really to try and avoid banning anything,” she said. “You can get gluten-free pizza. And you can get whole-wheat crust pizza, kosher pizza, halal pizza. Depending on your school population, they would order one or more.” With files from Alex Ballingall